Discussion of ethnocentrism - Essay Example

516 qtd in Raden, 2003). Often, ethnocentrism has a negative connotation because it seen as a “group-analogue to personal centeredness (narcissm) (Bizumic and Duckitt, 2008). In general, it is not good for society because it consign other people’s origin, background and ethnicity as inferior to compared one’s self. Ethnocentrism is considered to be the foundation or bedrock of prejudice and bigotry in society. Discrimination exists because of ethnocentrism. If fuels hatred and isolate other people in the process of assertion of another to become superior.

In the US, the discrimination against the Blacks and other minority groups is borne of ethnocentrism’s sense of white superiority over people with colored skin. Ethnocentrism which spawns prejudice thrives on a bigoted and limited perspective. Education is a good antidote to combat this problem because it allows ethnocentric people to see that other people are also human beings which feels and thinks just like them. Exposure to other type of people will also help to widen perspective and end bigoted perspective.

It will also make them realize that a person’s value does not really depend on ethnicity or origin but on the character of an individual. Writing Assignment 1 During the process of scourging the internet on how race and ethicity can be a polarizing issue in our society, I stumbled a disturbing article on how race and ethicity can be murderous when taken into extreme. . I found out that girls and young women were rounded up and raped in thousands just to lower the dignity of another race. I thought it was just fiction that is narrated by a novel that typically exaggerates but it was in fact news and actually did happen.

The general responsible for ordering of genocide in an attempt to cleanse the Serbian muslims was convicted by an organization who charges international crimes. The Bosnian Serb army general was Zdravko Tolimir who was convicted in the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague (ICTY) under the Geneva Convention Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention that defined war crimes as: "Willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including. wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile power, or wilfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial, .

taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly (Kafala, 2009)" And this horrible crime was carried out as an ethnic cleansing which is to remove from the face of the earth a race (Bosnian Muslim) which is hated by another race (Bosnian Serbs). Of course when one talks about ethnic cleansing, nobody can beat Hitler and his Nazi during the holocaust when he attempted to exterminate the entire race of Jews where he put them in gas chambers by the thousands.

This was rooted in his ethnocentricity or his belief that his Aryan race is superior and that inferior races must be